Education and career
McElrath obtained a BSc. in biology from Furman University, a Ph.D. in pathology, and an M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina. [1] After completing her residency in internal medicine, she received her clinical fellowship training in infectious diseases at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York and her post-doctoral training in molecular immunology at Rockefeller University in New York. [1]
During the early 1980s, while working as a medical resident in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, McElrath became interested in HIV/AIDS research. [1] This interest was compounded by her focus on infectious diseases in New York City. [5]
In 1988, she became an assistant professor at Rockefeller University. In 1990, McElrath relocated to Seattle, accepting a position at the University of Washington as an assistant professor and directing the HIV AIDS Madison Clinic at Harborview Medical Center. Within two years, she shifted her focus back to research work pursuing the development of an HIV vaccine. [6] She became the director of the AIDS Vaccine Evaluation Unit at the University of Washington. [6]
In 1996, McElrath joined the faculty at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, bringing her work towards an HIV vaccine to the center. She received an NIH Merit Award for her research and served as associate editor of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. [6] Over time, she became a full professor at the University of Washington, a full member at Fred Hutch, and the director of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HTVN) Laboratory Center. Headquartered at Fred Hutch, HVTN is the world's largest network that tests vaccines designed to prevent HIV. [7]
McElrath, her colleagues, and collaborators at Duke University and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine published work pinpointing "immune correlates" that were associated with reduced HIV risk. One of their key findings suggested the vaccines might spur some recipients to make antibodies that prevent HIV infection. [8] McElrath's quest to develop an HIV vaccine spurred her effort to launch a new immunology lab, Cape Town HVTN Immunology in Cape Town, South Africa. That facility opened its doors in 2013. [9]
In addition to her work with HVTN and at Fred Hutch, McElrath is an attending physician at Harborview Medical Center, the University of Washington Medical Center, and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the treatment arm of Fred Hutch. She has published nearly 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals, the majority of which focus on HIV/AIDS. In 2007, she co-founded the Vaccine Infectious Disease Institute at Fred Hutch and has served as the director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at Fred Hutch since 2011. [1]
Research
McElrath's scientific interests include investigations to understand the human immune responses that regulate and prevent HIV-1 infection. [10] She continues to be involved in a global initiative to develop an HIV-1 vaccine and research aiming to identify innate and mucosal immune defenses generated following vaccination. [11] McElrath has contributed to numerous integrated programs at the national and international levels to advance a coordinated effort to curb the HIV epidemic through prevention efforts. These include the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, the Gates Foundation Innate Immunity Consortium (PI), the Microbicide Trials Network (Director, Immunology Core), and the Seattle Vaccine Trials Unit (PI). [12]
In the McElrath Laboratory at Fred Hutch, a primary goal is to determine how T cell memory is induced both in natural infection and by immunization. McElrath and her team also are working to identify the properties of T cells that confer containment or eradication of HIV-1. [13] Their studies span a wide array of immunologic investigations in persons who experience unusual control of HIV-1 infection, including individuals with newly diagnosed infection, those with long-term non-progressive disease who control infection for more than a decade without anti-retroviral treatment, and people repeatedly exposed but not infected. [14] These clinical cohorts have been assembled for longitudinal studies in both Seattle and in two nations where the HIV epidemic is widespread—South Africa and Uganda. [15]
On Dec. 1, 2015, the work of McElrath and HTVN scientists pursuing a vaccine to potentially halt HIV and AIDS was highlighted in an HBO/VICE special report titled "Countdown to Zero." [16]
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